Ala' Alsallal

Launched in 2010, and based in Jordan, Jamalon’s dual-language ecommerce platform provides unparalleled access to a comprehensive catalogue of books in English and Arabic. Since its inception, Jamalon has grown to include over nine million titles, developed metadata for 150,000 Arabic books, and expanded regionally to reach customers in eight MENA countries.

Gideon Lichfield

Gideon Lichfield is the editor in charge of news at Quartz. He joined after a 16-year career at The Economist, which took him from the science desk in his native London to postings in Mexico City, Moscow, and Jerusalem, covering uprisings, wars, trade disputes, business feuds, political rivalries, social protests, philosophical arguments and bar-room brawls. In 2009 he moved to New York City, where his work on various digital projects for The Economist and teaching budding journalists at NYU set him to thinking about the future of the profession. The main thing he remembers from all his travels are the languages, of which he knows five well enough for interviewing evasive politicians, two more well enough to read, and one just well enough to haggle in. He is obsessed with finding better ways to do the kind of journalism that makes sense of the world instead of just keeping up with it, and with answering the question that has haunted his career: Why can't they all just get along?